Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

The bartender put the drinks down in front of him. 'Forgive the observation, sir, but you've got about you the air of a man who doesn't quite know where he is. Am I right?'

Pinn looked around the bar again. 'Yeah. Where am I?'

'The Grog Hatch, sir. Finest tavern in town.'

Pinn thought for a moment. 'And what town is that, then?'

The bartender was impressed. 'You are a free spirit, sir. Well then, I have the pleasure of informing you that you find yourself in the fine port of Kingspire. Home of the best spitted divehawk in Vardia. I urge you to try it, if you haven't already. Might I ask what brings you to this place?'

The bartender's conversation was making Pinn's head hurt. 'I was going somewhere . . .' he mumbled. 'My sweetheart's getting married.'

'Oh, how terrible! And you, sir, are racing to prevent it?'

'I was,' he said. 'Dunno how I ended up here.'

'Perhaps you were inclined to a have a drink to steel your nerve?' suggested the bartender, who'd begun cleaning glasses.

'Yeah.'

'And after several drinks . . . Why, a man alone in a place like this, he has needs, doesn't he? Needs a woman can't understand. Perhaps you took a fancy to one of the local doxies?'

'More than one,' Pinn grunted. He swigged his rum to clear the taste of previous rums out of his mouth.

'You must possess a surfeit of manly desire, sir.'

Pinn wasn't sure what that meant, but he liked the sound of it so he agreed. 'Damn right.'

'Perhaps you gambled a little, too?'

'Got to do a bit of gambling after you've done a whore,' said Pinn. 'That's the time to hit the tables. A man thinks best when his pods are empty. '

'And, if I may venture to extrapolate from your recent attempt to solicit refreshments, perhaps you've been here several days, spent all the money you have and now find yourself stranded, without a shillie to your name, and many kloms still to go to your sweetheart?'

'That's it,' said Pinn. 'Exactly.'

The bartender sighed dramatically. 'You have my sympathy, sir. Fortune is cruel to romantics.'

Pinn raised his mug of rum to that. This bartender was one wordy son of a bitch, but he was wise. He understood. You couldn't blame a man for cutting loose once in a while.

It had been a hard month, after all. Worrying about Lisinda, trying to work out what he should do. Suffering that bitch Dracken for the Cap'n's sake. Even after she peeled off the ghoul mask and it turned out she was hot underneath, he still hated her. Not enough that he'd have said no, but you didn't have to like a woman to sleep with them. It was simply a matter of letting the pressure off. A man had to let the pressure off every so often. Otherwise, he was apt to do all kinds of stupid things. That was just nature.

So the first thing Pinn did when he got out on his own was to let the pressure off. There was nobody giving him orders, nobody to stop him. nobody to make him drink coffee and sober up. It took him two days to spend all the money he had in the world.

It w as only now, in the cold light of impending poverty, that he remembered why he'd stopped at Kingspire in the first place. In his haste to reach Lisinda he'd been pushing the afterburners hard, and they'd eaten up all his fuel. He was running on fumes when he touched down in Kingspire and. unless some kind of miracle had occurred in the meantime, that was still the case.

The bartender was right It was like the world was conspiring against him. Trying to thwart his attempts to reach his sweetheart. If there really was an Allsoul, it certainly seemed to have a grudge against Pinn.

Miserably, he assembled a roll-up. He considered offering one to the bartender - it would be good to befriend him, since Pinn would be tapping him up for drinks later - but his tobacco was low and he wanted it for himself. He was just licking the paper when someone eased on to the bar stool next to him, arriving in a wave of strong perfume.

'Got one of those for me, stranger?' she asked.

She was plump, heavily rouged, and showing a terrifying amount of cleavage. Red hair spilled in curls over a mole-pocked expanse of white flesh. One of her front teeth slightly overlapped the other. She was at least twenty years older than him, but she dressed like a woman half her age.

He handed over his roll-up, as if in a daze, and lit it for her with a match. She took a drag and smiled at him. It might have been the booze, but Pinn thought she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.

'Strange and mysterious, the paths our hearts take us,' said the bartender sagely. But nobody was listening to him, so he drifted off to the other side of the bar, where there was another drunken soul in need of a sympathetic ear.

Summer had got hold of Tarlock Cove, and Jez was glad to feel the sun on her face. After all that time in the arctic north it was a pleasure to be reminded that not every day was a hostile one. She took winding lanes up the mountainside, past streets turned sluggish in the heat. The distant sound of crashing waves drifted up to her as the sea patiently battered at the coast far below.

The address that Crake had left with the Cap'n turned out to be a tall, narrow house tucked away down a well-kept cobbled alley. She approached the door and composed herself. Now that she was here, she felt nervous. She'd not seen Crake since that day on the All Our Yesterdays when her Mane side had taken over. By the time she was out of the infirmary, he was long gone. She had no idea what to expect from him.

Would he welcome her, or be angry? Would he resent her for coming, and scorn her attempts to talk him back to the Ketty Jay? Would he despise her for being part Mane? Or would he offer to help her, as she hoped? That was, after all, her reason for coming.

Yes, she wanted him back on the crew, for everyone's sake. Yes, she was concerned about his well-being and worried that he might be in some kind of trouble. But first and foremost, she needed him for his expertise. Because she had a daemon inside her, and who but a daemonist could drive it out?

If anyone could help her deal with what she was, it was him. But she'd never told him about her condition. He'd hinted in the past that he knew, or at least suspected, what lay behind her unique abilities. Yet she still hadn't spoken out. And then, on the very day it became obvious to all and she could hide it no longer, Crake decided to leave.

Just when she needed him most. Just when she could finally admit to him that she was part Mane.

Was it just bad timing? Or did he leave because of me? Does he fear me? Or does he fear what I might ask him?

No way to know. She should have talked to him a long time ago. Should have asked him to take care of the daemon that plagued her. But instead she'd suffered, because she didn't dare admit her secret.

In that, at least, they understood one another.

She rapped on the door and waited. After a few moments she heard footsteps, and the door was opened by a harassed-looking middle-aged man, stout and balding. This, she assumed, was Plome, the owner of the house.

'Yes?' he inquired, looking her over critically. It occurred to her that she should have worn something more impressive than her grey overalls, but she'd never been much interested in clothes or jewellery.

'I'm looking for Crake,' she said. 'Is he here?'

'And who might you be?' he asked suspiciously, studying her over his pince-nez.

'I'm Jez. I'm the navvie on the—'

But Plome's face had already lit up. 'Oh, thanks be! Come in, come in!' He hurried her inside and shut the door.

'He spoke about you,' Plome explained, as Jez found herself propelled down the hallway. 'Said you were the only one who knew about what happened to him. I'm so glad you're here. So very, very glad.' He stopped and seized her by the shoulders. 'You have to take him away!'